A four-legged beast resembling Tony Abbott snarls from a diamond-shaped road sign, Uluru in the background, a desert road in the foreground. The Jakarta Post's warning to its readers? "Unpredictable political animal" ahead …

Tony Abbott has said he will visit Jakarta in the coming days, his first overseas trip as prime minister; he has already phoned Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The planned Jakarta visit is seen as indicative of the emphasis Australian places on continuing its strong ties with its northern neighbour.

But the new prime minister's plan to buy Indonesian fishing boats and provide funds to "wardens" in return for key information about people-smuggling has been criticised by Indonesians.

The reaction of the head of the foreign affairs commission, Mahfudz Siddiq – "a crazy idea", "degrading and offensive" – was widely reported in Australia, but other commentators have also slammed the policy for its assumption that complex problems can be overcome by throwing money at the country.

"Outrage in Indonesia over the plan makes sense because Indonesia is not Australia's colony with people available to be 'bought' for another country's interest," Donny Syofyan, a lecturer in cultural sciences, wrote in the Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

And the Coalition's plan to stop asylum-seeker boats by turning them back to where they came from, when safe to do so, has also been greeted with scepticism.

"It would make a very good camera op if the two navies were standing on each side of the waters kicking an illegal migrant boat like a football," Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an adviser to Indonesian vice-president Boediono, says sarcastically. "I think the two countries would be made to look ridiculous."

Whatever the election rhetoric from the Coalition, Anwar says Canberra will still need to work closely with its neighbours. The asylum-seeker problem, she says, is a regional one that requires a regional solution.

"I don't think the new government in Canberra will try to impose its unilateral solution because that would be a solution that would only lead to new complications," notes Anwar.

Each year thousands of asylum seekers – from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Somalia – transit through Indonesia where they board dilapidated wooden boats to Australia. This year there have been more than 15,000 unauthorised boat arrivals.

Campaign promises don't always materialise, she says, and for the most part Indonesia is adopting a "wait-and-see attitude" to Abbott's new government.

"I think what Indonesia wants is really for Tony Abbott to understand Indonesia," she says, "[and] to also understand that Indonesia is trying to do its bit to solve the problem of asylum seekers. We are not just letting it happen and burdening Australia with this."

Ismartono expects that both governments will be forced to compromise and that conflict at the government-to-government level is unlikely.

"The only reaction, when people are egged on by certain parties in the government, ie the military, is when Papua comes up," she says.

Independence movements in the restive province of West Papua, and the support some Australian NGOs offer the cause, remains a sensitive topic.

Indonesia is likely to seek assurance of its territorial integrity from the Abbott government, particularly as the Freedom Flotilla vessel left Queensland for West Papua on Monday.